So….that final video. The idea had been to have my team mate Matt run in slow motion towards the car as it crept forward, they would embrace, and the whole thing would be cut to sappy music in our video. I drove and the first take went well, though our camera man missed it. So [...]

The road to Altai was horrendous. The gravel track turned into this weird, corrugated surface which rattled your bones to their very core. How it forms I have no idea - if it’s natural, it’s proof mother nature is evil. if it was man made, the guy was a total moron. Either way traveling at [...]

The crossing into Mongolia was incredibly easy. A few forms and stamps at the Russian side, and a brief search by the guards of our cars – who simply pointed at our bags and asked us what they were – and we were through to no mans land, about 20KM of baron nothingness. We were [...]

The Kazak border was straight forward, but featured one very moody guard who seemed furious we couldn’t speak Russian and was also more protective of his pen than anyone I have ever met. I considered trying to steal it to anger him more but thought better of it. His colleague, who spoke good English, was [...]

We made the drive to the Uzbekistan border next morning. This involved a quick crossing on a flotilla style bridge – probably there many, many decades – to another small white hut with a barrier and some bored looking soldiers. Rule 4 of the Mongol Rally - Borders are Stupid. Officials will always appear surprised [...]

The Iranian / Turkmenistani border itself was at the summit, looking out hundreds of miles in each direction across the tundra. A few Iranian trucks were lined up and one, Spanish Mongol Rally car sat at the gate. Always a good sign! Turkmenistan is renowned as the hardest country in the world to get a [...]

Leaving Turkey the next day was ok; once you figured out queuing is not a concept well know outside the British Empire and everyone basically pushes everyone else out of the way, we developed a blocking technique where one of us would hold them back while the others got the exit stamp.
The Iranian side [...]

The road from Ankara up to the coast and east up to Samsun was two lanes and in pretty good condition, but it seems the EU paid for infrastructure improvements and a new road was in the works. Unlike home though, where they build a bit, open it, build another bit, open it and end [...]

Budapest was a fantastic city but we have some serious ground to cover. After checking the exhaust, which had a nice hole in it but nothing major, we set off south. Our original plan was to head for Romania but talking to the Young Offenders we decided instead to head for Serbia, which sounded more [...]

So the start has finally arrived. 12 months of planning, visa stress, buying kit and the hunt for sponsors have brought us here, the beginning of the Mongol Rally 2009! There are around 300 other teams lined up in the paddocks in a collection of cars the like of which this circuit has surely never [...]